The trade, industry and moviegoers got a bit jolt in the morning today. The makers of PadMan announced that their film will be arriving earlier. It was supposed to release earlier on April 13, 2018. But today they revealed that the film has been preponed to January 26.

PadMan stars Akshay Kumar, who plays the major role of the antagonist in 2.0, which was also scheduled to release on the same day – January 26, 2018! Hence, it seemed like two Akshay Kumar films will release on the same day! It was an unprecedented move – releasing two films of a major superstar on the same day – and this has happened at least in the last one or two decades. A debate already begun on whether this is a right decision, with some arguing that releasing two such significant films is foolhardy and the rest claiming that both films can work as they both belong to diverse genres.

But now it has come to light that this unusual clash will not take place. 2.0 has been postponed to April 2018 and most probably would release on the day that PadMan was originally slated to hit theatres – April 13. It would be the Tamil New Year on April 14 and hence, this date is apt to release such a big, significant film. The reason for postponement it seems is because the VFX work will take longer than expected.

This is the second time that 2.0 has got postponed. At first, it was all set to release on Diwali 2017. Then, the makers announced of the Republic Day 2018 release. In fact, Bollywood Hungama was the first one to break the news on August 19, 2017 that 2.0 might not make it on January 26, 2018 and the producers back then had denied our report.

2.0 is the sequel to the 2010 blockbuster Robot. The first part starred Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan while 2.0 features Rajinikanth, Amy Jackson and Akshay Kumar. Akshay plays an evil villain in this sci-fi film that is a bi-lingual. It’s shot in Hindi and Tamil and would also have a dubbed Telugu version. The film’s grand music launch took place just two days ago, on October 27, in Dubai. It’s bewildering that 2.0’s audio released almost six months before its actual release.

PadMan meanwhile is directed by R Balki, written and co-produced by Akshay’s wife Twinkle Khanna and features Akshay in the lead role along with Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte. It is inspired from the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad making machine.